


Hold Fast (Again and Again)

by partingxshot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Universe, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Missing Scene, Mother-Son Relationship, Post-Season/Series 07, Some Plot, Team as Family, The Quantum Abyss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 17:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15954017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partingxshot/pseuds/partingxshot
Summary: The future-flash ends before Keith can formulate the thought—leaving him on his knees, clutching the wolf’s fur against the time gale.Hunk, Keith thinks. He pieces the past together. Sees an image of unmistakable courage.(Keith has a hard time re-integrating with the team after the Quantum Abyss. He finds some motivation.)





	Hold Fast (Again and Again)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic happened for a few reasons. Firstly, I loved Keith and Hunk's interactions in S7. Secondly, I figured that floating around with your estranged mother in a temporally-dislocated wilderness for a couple of years that nobody else remembers would have...a few psychological consequences.
> 
> Thirdly, as much as I love this show, I’m not a huge fan of the way relationships that started developing in early seasons fall out of focus for long periods of time, or disappear altogether. This was my attempt at making that...phenomenon...into an arc that satisfies me.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

“Mom,” Keith says from across the fire one night. Krolia doesn’t startle, but her eyes flash upwards in brief, unguarded uncertainty.

“Mom,” Keith tries again, experimental, tasting the word. “You know neither of us have said a word all day?”

The corner of Krolia’s lip twitches in what could be a smile. “You get used to silence in the Blade.”

Keith nods. She’s only being partially literal.

Silence suits them both. They will be bombarded with temporal visions regardless, past and future laid excruciatingly bare in an introduction more intimate than a thousand stupid icebreakers.

If they do not speak—if they keep their conversation to fishing or mapping or standing watch—they can maintain some rudimentary semblance of privacy. Keith doesn’t have to decide whether or not to call her “Mom.”

The quantum abyss pulls them into a two-year silence as heavy as neutron stars.

 

The team makes a home together on the Atlas, although nothing compares to the Castle.

Hunk takes over the Paladins’ private kitchenette, lovingly unloading shopping bags until the cabinets are stuffed full of sugar and flour and cans of coconut milk; apple pie stuffing and chocolate chips. Allura and Keith sort out the team’s ready room, directing Pidge and Hunk to install every computer and comm system they need to create instantaneous, useful communication with both Shiro’s command deck and the outside universe. Lance rushes to test the team’s private training simulators; declares them a-ok (if preset on too easy a level—what are they, Altean children?).

Their quarters are like a ship within a ship. None of them (save Shiro) made it past cadet status, their world-saving heroism aside, so no one is sure where they fit into the ship’s larger command structure. So they are given their own sector—conveniently walled away from the Garrison hierarchy, Keith thinks, though he doesn’t blame Shiro—and treated more like alien allies than like Earth’s own representatives to the larger universe.

And there is, undeniably, a command structure on the Atlas. Too many people for Keith’s taste: specialists and soldiers wearing Garrison uniforms rather than civilian clothing, striding through hallways holding important tablets. In Keith’s perspective, there should be no in-between: either you’re in full armor, ready to jet out the bay doors at a moment’s notice, or you can wear something comfortable—a jacket you can sink into; something warm and all your own.

There were a lot of reasons the Garrison was never right for him.

(But then he thinks: the Blades were like that, too. You could never fully let your guard down, even when you saw each other’s faces. Eventually you got used to it. You took your precious free moments to withdraw; to breathe alone in your room. You pried away the second thoughts, banished the ghosts of your old team. The Blade was doing something important, after all.)

He used to dream of the Galra clawing the Castle’s walls down. On the Atlas he dreams, instead, of future-flashes—of space-time drop-offs and the void between galaxies, so far-flung he cannot see stars.

Late one night he wanders into the kitchenette. He isn’t exactly hungry, but it’s better than staring at the ceiling of his quarters, waiting for sleep or the vacuum to find him, whichever comes first.

Hunk is sitting at the little table, reading a book by half-light.

“Sorry,” Keith says, surprised when his voice cracks from disuse.

Hunk jumps, then smiles sheepishly. “It’s all good. You need the room?”

Keith’s eyes sweep the counter for signs of a midnight recipe in progress: eggs, a gloopy whisk, a bowl of cheese. Nothing.

He can’t make out the title of Hunk’s book, but it’s in print, which is rare. A ratty paperback with what looks like a noir detective on the front. Not a recipe or a technical manual.

Hunk clears his throat, and Keith realizes he’s been standing silently for too long.

This happens now. A conversation starts up around him—Pidge tries to tell him about Monsters & Mana, or Lance ribs him about his training schedule—and something about his response is badly-timed or badly-done enough that his friends can’t hide the concerned little faces they make before picking up steam again.

It’s not that he isn’t paying attention, because he _is,_ he _wants_ to, but he’s used to the conversational rhythm of two journey-years with a taciturn mother and a silent wolf. It’s like he’s forgotten how people speak to each other when not making plans or fighting evil—when not in the midst of Something Important, of war.

In the quantum abyss, all moments could be the same moment. Things happen again, again, again.

“What are you doing here?” he settles on. He winces at how it comes out.

Hunk just laughs. “Not...super sure? I used to go down to the kitchen on the Castle when I was homesick and had trouble sleeping. My mom—it wasn’t always cooking my family did in there. We’d catch up or play board games or—” he stops short, scanning Keith’s face for a sign he’s touched on something sensitive. Keith keeps his face carefully neutral.

Hunk sighs. “I thought it was about the homesickness. Then last week the Atlas was docked on Earth again, and...I came here anyway. How crazy is that, right? I saw my parents _that day,_ and I just…”

He gives a lopsided shrug and grins. His cheeks dimple. His eyes are dark enough to look full and liquid in the lowlight. They track Keith’s own, like Hunk is looking for something specific there. A real answer to a rhetorical question.

“Um,” Keith says, leaning against the door frame. “I guess...it’s not that crazy. When Shiro...when I was at the home, and then after I started at the Garrison, I kept thinking of my dad’s house. I always knew if people would just leave me alone, I could go back there—fix it up, make it a home, live out there in the desert where nobody could mess with me. After a couple years I snuck out to see it, and it just…” without realizing it, he’s extended a hand in frustration, fingers grasping at something invisible in the air. Something with impossible-to-define edges. “It was awful. Totally empty. I guess a part of me thought all our stuff would still be there.”

He remembers watching skyscrapers fall on the Garrison viewscreens.

Hunk taps his fingers against his book; cocks his head to the side. Coming from someone else, Keith would describe his scrutiny as intense. Instead, a better word would be…pensive. Or attentive. Keith feels himself flushing.

Hunk hums to himself, like he’s mulling something over.

“What?” Keith squawks.

“You’re easy to talk to, you know?” Hunk tells him.

“That’s...surprising."

“Why?”

Keith opens his mouth, then closes it again. He knows the shape of the answer, the image of it, but can’t put into words. A shack in an empty desert. A long, quiet journey, two years that didn’t exist. The gleaming outlines of a Blade’s placid mask. Himself, nearly space-mad, breathing recycled air, trying to abandon the team for the great void beyond.

(Hunk grabbing hold of his ankle.)

“I just...I’m still not great with people.”

“Eh, maybe not. You’re not, like, _bad_ with people, though. You’re a pretty good listener.” Hunk hesitates for a moment. “You know you can...come out of your room sometimes, right?”

“What? I’m always out of my room! There’s—”

“Planning, training, fighting. I know.” Hunk shrugs. “But dude. You keep shutting yourself away in there as soon as a mission ends. Don’t you wanna, I dunno, play games? Eat dinner together?”

Then, plainspoken and so earnest Keith almost wants to run, Hunk adds: “We miss you.”

Keith crosses his arms; hunches in. “I came back ages ago,” he says. “I’m right here. It’s fine.”

Hunk hesitates. He slides his book into the satchel he’s taken to carrying with him. Stands up and places his big hands gently on the back of his chair. “Did I ever thank you for what you did for me? With my parents?”

Keith frowns. “Yeah, only about twenty times.”

It’s hard to tell in the lowlight, but Hunk looks more ruddy around the cheeks than usual. He leans forward over the chair.

“Not enough times, then,” he says.

 

The wolf grows faster than Keith or Krolia expect.

“Do you think,” Keith asks one day as he picks herbs for dinner, “he could take us all the way to the end of this place?”

Krolia assesses the wolf seriously. He assesses her back, tail thumping.

“No,” she finally sighs. “We’ve never seen him go further than maybe half a mile. And he gets tired.”

This is true. The wolf seems to use less energy by “blinking” back and forth between two positions, rather than by blinking forward and forward alone.

(In the quantum abyss, all moments could be the same moment. Things happen again, again, again.)

Keith rubs at a bug bite on his neck. The bloodsuckers cohabitating with them create welts that itch like hell but don’t cause lasting damage. Keith has to wonder if his Galra heritage is to thank for his continued health out here.

“You’re disappointed,” Krolia says, a full half-varga later. “We knew this would be a long journey.”

Keith greets this with silence at first. Once another varga has eclipsed, he says, “I know what we have to do. I’m just tired. It’s quieter than the desert out here.”

 

The Voltron Coalition lost a lot of ground when the team “disappeared.” Half the planets they liberated were re-conquered by various Galra factions: petty raiders and wannabe emperors alike.

Re-liberating Puig is an almost refreshing change of pace, because this time they were conquered not by the Galra, but by another spacefaring race: a species from the next system over that took advantage of chaos in the Coalition to crush the Puigians under their collective boot.

“Cowards,” Allura snarls as the Ligelian civilian overseers snivel at her feet. Their military leaders used advanced stealth technology to escape the planet unscathed, sacrificing a segment of their fleet in the process. This serves to enrage her further. “We must present a united front against the Galra, not sink into...banal opportunism!”

Keith would hate to be on the receiving end of one of Allura’s more fiery homilies. They’re masterpieces of royal condescension and moral outrage that make his blood run slightly cold just by proximity. “Banal opportunism” sounds deeply damning, coming from her.

The other Paladins hover at the edges of the Puigian throne room. Pidge discusses the reestablishment of global communication links with the northern and southern governors, while Lance and Keith idly compare the firing rates of Ligelian firearms they’d seen in action.

Keith watches Hunk out of the corner of his eye. He’s talking to what appears to be a combat medic reporting from the field. Hunk’s forehead is wrinkled up in worry: a heavy weight that they all bear, of course, but on him it shows.

Then the low rumble of the young medic’s voice cuts off. He gasps slightly, suddenly, and rubs his sleeve vigorously over his eyes.

Hunk places a hand at the side of his shoulder; steadies him. Smiles weakly, sad empathy in his eyes. Murmurs something.

“Keith,” Lance says, snapping his fingers. “Focus up.”

“What?” he says, tearing his eyes away.

“I said, you and me should do some rounds back on the Atlas. I don’t get how the simulator is so...boring. It’s based on the Castle’s, for crying out loud! We gotta figure out how to bring it up to our level. You in?”

“Maybe,” Keith shrugs.

The medic swallows and nods vigorously at whatever Hunk has said, pulling himself together. Hunk leads him gently by the elbow in Keith’s direction.

(Keith’s heart jumps to his mouth and he doesn’t know why.)

“ _Maybe?_ ” Lance is saying. “Man, we never hang out anymore.”

“Yeah, we do,” Keith says automatically.

Lance is silent for a moment. Then he says, “Keith…are you—”

“What is it, Hunk?” Keith asks loudly. Lance makes a frustrated noise, tongue clicking against teeth. Keith ignores the squirm of guilt in his stomach.

“This is my new friend, Bos,”  Hunk tells them.

“Pleased to meet you,” Bos says in a watery voice. He looks even younger up-close: Keith isn’t an expert on Puigian aging, but he’d say the medic isn’t much older than Pidge. How hard-up has Puig been over the years?

“Bos is here to request medical aid from the Atlas. There’s a lot of wounded and there aren’t enough supplies to go around. Shiro’s still in orbit, so I’m sure if we contact him we can get it all sorted out.” Hunk is speaking with deliberate calm: almost musically. The medic, who looks on the verge of a panic attack, seems to lean on his shoulder.

And it’s really no wonder. Hunk has this effect on a lot of aliens he’s just met.

“Okay,” Keith says. “Yeah. We’ll get you the supplies. Anything else while we’re working on that?”

“It’s just…” Bos says, eyes flickering between Keith and Lance. “The Ligelian generals sacrificed their pilots. The pilots kept fighting and fighting, and losing, and then—” his voice breaks. He takes a moment to compose himself.

“We need a Ligelian doctor or seven,” Hunk says quietly. “Even if Ligel’s written these people off as expendable already. Even if we have to negotiate with Ligel’s government—make concessions—to get help for their own people.”

He holds Keith’s gaze calmly. Like Keith would never think to disagree.

“God. You’re right,” Lance says. “Allura’s gonna hate this. Who wants to bet Ligel’s gonna decide it’s not worth it, and mock us for asking?”

“Maybe, but we have to try,” Hunk says with a frown. “Right now. Those people shouldn’t suffer like this.” He raises a hand as though to wipe sweat from his brow, then lets it hover there, pressing into his hairline, unsure.

There is an irrational part of Keith—the part that wants to pull his family and his allies close beside him and fight for them savagely and blindly, a wolf fighting for her cubs, a lion mauling a hunter—that shamefully thinks: _Those people might not thank you for this. They might use your compassion against you, betray you._

Then he thinks: Hunk’s a good judge of character.

(Then he thinks: it doesn’t matter. Hunk would rather be betrayed than leave people helpless, a thousand times over.)

(Things happen again, again, again.)

“Okay,” Keith says. “We’ll make the call.”

Hunk’s smile is radiant; sun from behind a cloud. He gently punches Bos’s arm. Keith has to force himself not to grin in response.

He’s dimly aware of Lance standing beside him, giving him an odd look that he’s happy to ignore.

“And if that doesn’t work,” Keith says, “I mean, I guess I’ve never kidnapped a doctor before.”

 

_“And to be brave is to go on in spite of fear.”_

He watches Hunk through the eyes of a future-memory. Sees the way Hunk’s broad shoulders tense up with terrible circumstance, the way his gentle hands clench and release at the edge of the table. Keith feels a primal reflective sadness, deep and visceral in his gut, coupled by a strange and electric energy.

He stumbles over the syllables; doesn’t run away.

_“I know you’re scared, but your family—they need you to be strong right now.”_

Hunk is silent for long enough that Keith knows he’s made a mistake—that he shouldn’t have spoken, that he doesn’t know how to relate to someone like this, god, how could he be so—

He’s swept up in a dazzling hug that knocks the air from his lungs, soft and powerful and full of life and love. His next gasp of air feels like a revelation.

_“Okay! Alright. Now we’re hugging.”_

He smiles and holds on, arms lose at Hunk’s back.

(He wants to hold tighter. Again, again, again.)

 _Hunk,_ future-Keith thinks. _Hunk is—_

The flash ends before Keith can formulate the thought, leaving him on his knees, clutching the wolf’s fur against the time gale.

 _Hunk,_ present-Keith thinks. He pieces the past together. Sees an image of unmistakable courage.

 

Negotiations with the Ligelian government do not go well.

As soon as the connection is cut, Allura storms off the bridge of the Atlas, muttering Altean curses the Paladins have not yet had the honor to learn. Keith thinks he sees Pidge taking notes.

Shiro shrugs, his brow furrowed. “Okay. Well, we expected that. I assume that’s not the end of it.”

“Nope,” Keith says, turning toward the door. “Paladins, suit up. We’re going to Ligel.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You guys look exhausted. Take a breather first, alright? Have medbay check you out.”

Keith lets out a short bark of laughter. “Great, I’m glad we can afford to sit around and let a _full medical staff_ check out our bumps and scrapes.”

“Not the full staff,” Shiro says calmly. “Most of them are helping out down on Puig.”

Keith freezes; wants to kick himself. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Of course your people are...yeah. Paladins, take an hour and then get ready to set out.”

He feels Shiro’s hesitance to let go of his shoulder, but pulls away anyway. Doesn’t look back at him.

“I’ll be in my quarters,” he says, and makes good on the promise.

It’s not, Keith thinks as he buries his head in his pillow, as though he doesn’t think the others want to be around him. It’s not as though he doesn’t remember their early days as a team, the way they started as a loose collection of fragile, broken pieces and then came together—slowly, daily, with hard work and empathy—to become a coherent whole. It’s not that he doesn’t remember swimming in the Castle’s pool with Lance, or losing to Pidge at one of her favorite video games, or laughing as Allura and Coran plead with Hunk to recreate a dish he had created through iconoclastic use of the Castle kitchen.

He remembers. But two years is a long time.

For them, it’s nothing. He left them ( _You left,_ Lance spits as they float in the void, and Keith kicks off into nothingness—) and then he came back. They can’t see the parts of him that don’t fit anymore; the parts that are out of place. Out of sync with them. Changed. Older, but not. Separate, but not.

A written message from Shiro comes through on the wall screen, asking if Keith would like to talk. Keith sighs and turns it off.

He shrugs off his jacket, leaving him in a black t-shirt that, after today, could badly use a wash. Then he shoves his head back under the pillow.

He feels the compression of air—the strange tension and release, unnoticeable unless you’ve practiced noticing—of Kosmo blinking into his room. He hears the wolf whine slightly, then curl up on the bare floor.

After a few more doboshes of feeling sorry for himself, Keith sits up. He pats the bed next to him.

Kosmo blinks lazily, ear flicking. He doesn’t move.

When Keith was about seven, a cat used to hang out around his dad’s place. Sometimes Kosmo’s behaviors map more closely onto those of an Earth cat than an Earth dog. Intelligent, yes, but entirely on his own terms.

Keith sighs. He slides off of his bed to his knees. He pitches forward to bury his face in Kosmo’s fur. From there, he melts slowly: relaxes, turns onto his side. Curls his knees to his chest.

“It was so quiet out there,” he mumbles into his gently-breathing pillow, “I think I forgot how to be a person.”

Kosmo grunts and raises his head; licks Keith’s cheek.

Keith snorts. He clutches onto the fur with strangely shaking fingers.

The door slides open.

“Oh! Sorry,” Hunk says. “I thought it would be locked.”

His hands are behind his back. He stands on the other side of the threshold, toes just barely touching the line between the white floor of Keith’s room and the sheer gunmetal of the corridor.  When he swallows, a line deepens in his neck.

Keith flushes. He pushes himself to a sitting position before running a nervous hand through his hair, pulling it back from his face only for it to fall forward again. Overgrown bangs tickle at the planes of his cheeks.

“No, you’re—it’s fine. I keep forgetting it doesn’t lock automatically.”

Hunk nods solemnly. “I know what you mean. There’s so many little things that run differently here, even if some of the design elements are the same—it’s like, the minute you get used to things and you can sort of, maybe, _pretend_ you’re on the Castle—bam! Manual locks and Phillips screws instead of Planx! If I had to pick one thing I miss about the Castle, it’d be Planx screws. Genius design element.”

Watching Hunk’s face light up about screw designs, Keith can’t help but chuckle. He rubs at the back of his neck, where the skin is still disconcertingly warm to the touch.

Hunk seems to see something in Keith’s face that allows him to relax—like a breath out all at once. A little smile on his face, ready to talk blueprints, any awkwardness forgotten. Keith would be jealous, if that were at all fair to Hunk—Hunk, who could talk someone’s ear off, but only gets really fired up about things that _matter:_ screwdrivers, and family, and interstellar relations, and the perfect way to flambé in alien atmospheres.

Kosmo makes a self-satisfied noise halfway between a purr and a whine, then disappears.

“So, I brought you this,” Hunk says, holding out a tin.

“You didn’t have to,” Keith starts automatically. “I’m not—”

“Keith,” Hunk says. He smiles, a slightly lopsided thing that scrunches up his cheek and brings a couple of possible freckles into the light. “I did this because I _wanted_ to. You lying on your bedroom floor looking like death warmed over—like, warmed in a bad microwave where the middle always stays frozen—that’s an element of the gift-giving process I could have in no way predicted. Take the bread. It’s coconut.”

Something inside Keith twists, sending a flurry of hot-cold shivers all through him.

He hesitates for just a moment. Then he reaches a plaintive hand toward Hunk.

Hunk steps over the threshold without a second thought. He grasps Keith’s wrist; pulls him to his feet with slightly too much energy. Keith stumbles forward; steadies himself by placing a hand on Hunk’s chest.

Time flows oddly for a moment (Keith should know).

It takes an eon for him to summon the courage to look up.

He suddenly sees the two of them from the outside, as though from a memory, or a forgotten future-flash from the quantum abyss: Keith in his t-shirt, suddenly cold. Hunk in his sweater, warmth radiating from him, holding a forgotten tin of bread.

Hunk’s eyes are wide, watching Keith with something approaching awe.

Keith thinks: one of us has to move. Now or never.

He swallows. Reaches up his other hand to pinch the collar of Hunk’s jacket between his knuckles.

“Keith, is Hunk with you?” Pidge says from over the intercom.

Hunk jumps what must be a foot into the air. Keith takes a step backwards.

“Uh, yes! Yes, I am with Keith! I mean, that is, I just meant—”

“We’re here, Pidge,” Keith says loudly. Nervous energy still runs up his arms, pooling warmth in his cheeks.

“You guys ready to roll out? We’re all suited up, here.”

“Yep! Totally ready!” Hunk says. “Just gimme a second to change!” Then he turns on his heel and marches, stiff-backed, out of Keith’s quarters.

Keith stands alone in the middle of a stark room that feels emptier than it did before Hunk arrived.

He tries not to think. Tries to ignore the encroaching swoop of horror in his stomach; the fear that he has dramatically misinterpreted and misstepped.

Just as he’s turning to pick up his jacket, Hunk ducks back in.

“Sorry,” he says. He averts his eyes from Keith’s, but an unfamiliar smile plays across his lips. “I forgot to leave the bread. Hey...let’s eat it together when we get back, alright?”

“Brace!” Krolia shouts, and Keith runs back from the edge of the whale, straight into the shining edges of a memory.

He’s piloting Black—no, Red—and laserfire roars all around him.

“Keep calm! Get back in formation,” Shiro demands over the intercom, just as Hunk yells, “Guys, I’m pinned down! Somebody help!”

Keith growls and shoots forward, Red’s mighty speed propelling him toward the place where Yellow floats trapped in front of a derelict space station, a massive Galra cruiser bearing down on him.

“Oh, no,” Pidge says, “Oh, no, the cargo ships! They were supposed to be clear by now, I can’t—”

“Paladins!” Allura calls from the Castle. “You _must_ protect the Betazoid cargo pilots. Someone must—”

“We’re cornered, Allura,” Shiro says through gritted teeth, and Keith can feel the stress emanating from him—stress, melded by years of discipline into actionable adrenaline. “There’s a Galra front between us and the cargo ships, three deep.”

“And they’ve got that crazy new cannon on the cruiser!” Lance shouts. Keith doesn’t have to look back to know he’s preparing to charge anyway.

“If you push through together—” Allura says.

“Can’t,” Keith says, jamming his bayard into its slot. The sword springs into Red’s mouth, and she begins dragging it across the massive cruiser’s hull. “Hunk’s stuck.”

By now the cruiser is raining heavy fire on Yellow. Hunk dodges what he can, but he’s trapped between two monstrous metal walls and his lion wasn’t built for speed.

The Galra cannon rises from the ship’s hull, pointed directly at him.

Hunk lets out a little shriek. Keith’s breath catches in his throat.

“Hold on, Hunk!” he tells him, streaking toward the cannon as it begins to charge.

“Hunk!” Pidge yells. “I’m coming!”

 _“No!”_ Hunk shouts. Keith blinks.

Hunk’s voice is thrumming with tension—anxiety shaped into action, a skill Keith has always associated mostly with Shiro. “No, you guys get to the cargo pilots! I—”

Keith reaches the cannon just as it begins emitting a high-pitched wine. The energy emanating from it has shifted to an ugly yellow-white. Red strikes it with the sword and is blown backwards—Keith feels the power coursing through his lion’s circuits like his own, shutting down essential systems and making Keith’s vision cloud over as he tumbles end-over-end through space.

Stupid, he thinks. Charging at a cannon like it would be defenseless. Shiro would be disappointed; he’d let his emotions get the best of him again.

The stars fade, leaving him alone in darkness. Like the space between galaxies. (Again, again, again—Hunk grabbing hold of his ankle.)

He returns to consciousness when the shadow of Hunk’s lion falls over his; when Yellow gently grabs Red by the back of the neck and hauls her to safety.

He later learns that Hunk rushed the cruiser to escape. Head-on, straight at the cannon, curving upwards at the last second. Then his sturdy lion led the charge to rescue the cargo pilots, barrelling through Galra ships three rows deep.

And, as he told anyone who congratulated him, he was scared out of his mind the whole time.

As the memory dissolves into spacedust, as Keith stands suspended in the eerie space between the past and the present, he feels something warm pooling in his chest.

 _Hunk,_ he thinks wildly, exuberantly, patching together the past, snatching at threads of future. _Hunk is—_

The thought breaks into bubbles; fades like foam. Like losing the remnants of a dream upon waking.

When his vision focuses, Krolia is frowning at him. This is irregular; the two of them have maintained a careful level of emotional privacy by looking away after the flashes, to give the other time to recover dignity if need be—to rearrange their expressions.

Keith flushes at this breach of protocol. “What?”

Krolia shakes her head. “Nothing. It...the feeling was familiar. I’ve witnessed similar bravery. It’s rare, but I’ve met a few men and women who impressed me as much as...Hunk...does you.”

Conforming to their odd conversational habits, she falls silent until evening, when she says, without any sort of context or explanation: “But I loved only one."

 

“So, we’re doing this?” Pidge says over the intercom as they streak toward Ligel, Keith in the lead.

“Oh, we’re doing this,” Lance says. “We’re master infiltrators. Skilled kidnapper-commandos.”

“It was a joke!” Keith groans. “Let me live, will you?”

“Nope,” Pidge says. “We are totally borrowing some enemy noncombatants against their will, which is either a new low for us or a sign of seriously improved efficiency—take your pick—but is definitely, for-real kidnapping.”

“It’s not kidnapping if you’re gonna give them back!”

Lance breaks into full-on peals of laughter. Keith’s heart clenches for a moment. He misses making them all laugh, intentionally or otherwise.

“Keith,” Allura says, “Where are we kidnapping the doctors from?”

“Oh my _god,_ we’re _not—”_

“Uh, guys?” Hunk says suddenly. His voice makes Keith jump; his chest constrict. _(Get it together. Handle it later.)_ “Patrol!”

The lions scatter, hiding between asteroids until the danger passes.

“We could take ‘em,” Lance mutters. “Little itty baby ships compared to the Galra.”

“Best they don’t know we’re coming,” Allura says. “Let’s not underestimate a culture that prefers stealth to muscle-ships. Anyway, Keith, as I was saying.”

“Yeah. Uh. Where we’re gonna...get the doctors. I’m going to tell you that.”

“Oh my god,” Pidge says, “he doesn’t know.”

“I do know!” Keith snaps. “It’s...there’s a hospital in the eastern province. It’s really early morning on that side of the planet, so it should be staffed but sparse. Maybe. I figured we’ll just…”

“Go in guns blazing? Sneak through hospital air vents?”

“Ooh,” Lance says, “let’s dress up in lab coats and stethoscopes. I wanna be Dr. Rex Danger, sexy doctor hero, protagonist of an ongoing TV drama-slash-action franchise with record-breaking ratings.”

“We’re _going,”_ Keith says, “to sneak in through the cargo bay. It’s a _hospital,_ not a—a max security prison, or a dumb soap opera. Nobody is gonna be the protagonist.”

“Exactly,” Allura sniffs. “Our doctor show should have an ensemble cast at best.”

“Ha!” Pidge says. “Knew it. Keith always wants to sneak in through the cargo bay. Hunk, you owe me ten GAC.”

Keith resists the urge to bang his head against the control panel.

Upon reaching the surface, they divide up their tasks. Pidge immediately hacks the hospital for schematics, planning to hide out in the cargo bay and selectively shut down security systems as necessary. The last thing they want to do is cause a panic amidst civilians, so the less confrontational the infiltration the better.

Lance sets himself up on the roof of what looks like an office building across the street, preparing his specialized rifle to guide them through. Allura carefully grows gills, a few scaly patches, and a throat like a bullfrog’s to better blend in with the Ligelians. She’ll sneak in with Hunk and Keith, then—should an opportunity arise—split off to talk to the medical staff alone, feeding them a story that will hopefully be enough to make them follow her out. If that doesn’t work, the group will need to find another way to convince them—and to prevent them from calling in an armed response.

“There are a lot of holes in this plan, actually,” Hunk says philosophically.

“Yes, but on the bright side, I’m a doctor,” Allura tells him.

“Huh,” Lance says from the roof. “Is it just me, or are there more patrols in the streets than you’d expect for like four in the morning?”

“It’s a big city in a militaristic society,” Allura says, pressing closer to the alley wall the rest of the team is hiding behind. “We’ve seen worse on Galra-occupied planets.”

“Well, yeah,” Hunk says, beginning to sound nervous. “But for a non-Galra world…I mean, maybe we should have gone to a hospital out in the country. A-a medical outpost! A—”

 _“Now,”_ Keith says as an automated transport truck floats up to the hospital cargo bay doors. He darts across the street; the others follow. From there it isn’t difficult for his highly-trained team to follow the truck inside without attracting suspicion.

From all appearances, they’re looking at a record-speed extraction, provided the couple of armed guards Lance has pinpointed through his scope don’t prove too difficult to circumvent.

Pidge takes up her station behind a mound of crates. Keith, Allura, and Hunk make their way further into the building.

Infiltrating a hospital, Keith realizes (as they duck from room to room, stopping only to listen to Lance’s instructions and to steal a lab coat for Allura), feels much different from infiltrating a military base. On one hand, it’s easier—no one has the training to notice them sneaking through as long as they time everything right. On the other hand, the lights are white and all-pervasive. He feels exposed.

“This is so weird,” Hunk says, softly enough that Keith only hears him through their intercom. It takes him a moment to realize Hunk has used their private line. This is unusual in the field, and thus feels strangely intimate.

“I know,” he says, darting down an abandoned hallway.

“Doesn’t feel right sneaking in here,” Hunk grumbles, pounding along behind him. “Everybody here’s just trying to help people, or trying to—to get comfortable.”

Keith swallows at that. Tries not to think of hospitals in a different context; a half-forgotten memory of a waiting room that he’d barely needed to see before they’d told him the bad news.

“Don’t like this,” Hunk says, sounding a bit nauseous.

“Are you okay?” Keith asks.

“Me?” Hunk says, surprised. “I’m...yeah. I’m just...I guess I’m thinking about the Earth invasion a bit too much to be in a place like this.”

Keith winces, his own discomfort temporarily forgotten. He slides behind an overstocked cart at a hallway junction just as a couple of techs pass by, gabbing.

He waits until they’re gone before murmuring, “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll just get this over with and go, okay?”

He glances over his shoulder at where Hunk and Allura are crouched. Hunk gives a barely-perceptible nod, lips pressed tight together.

Keith watches his broad shoulders straighten a bit. He tells himself that everything will be okay.

 

“Did you ever really...get to know them?” Keith asks.

“My comrades in the Blade kept to themselves,” Krolia tells him—and it’s a wonder she knows what he’s referring to, after another day full of silence. “As was only wise.”

She’s stripping the meat from a badger-like creature they’d caught not far from their overhang. They hadn’t encountered the species before now, so she’ll have to expose it to what’s left of a Blade-issued chemical vial to determine if it will be safe to eat, even after all of their effort catching the surprisingly fast space-drifter.

Keith had chased it up a rocky outcropping, only to find himself tripping over the animal as soon as they’d reached the crest of the cliff. He’d tumbled end-over-end down the other side. His bruises still sting, as does the gash on his jaw he’d treated with a native medical moss.

Krolia had glanced at Keith, seen he had a practical knowledge of medical application, and went back to what she was doing. She hadn’t offered to help, or to bandage him. She hadn’t asked about the pain.

It’s only logical. She trusts that he’s seen worse, and trusts him to survive. Keith should not be surprised that his alien mother has alien priorities.

(He finds himself flexing and releasing his fingers—again, again, again—forming fists and then forcing them back down again. He has nail marks on his palms.)

“Yeah,” he says, “but you were with those guys for...for as long as I’ve been alive. Before then.”

He’s seen it all in the flashes: the deca-phoebs piling up as she grew, as she learned, as she rebelled against her controlling parents, as she witnessed the horrors of war, as she despaired. As she found hope again. As she loved.

He doesn’t see many faces in her memories.

Krolia shrugs. She sets her knife down. Rips the creature’s remaining strings of viscera away with her hands.

“We couldn’t afford it. Any one of us could have been a traitor. It took me years to become comfortable with _Kolivan,_ and he gave my life purpose.” She drops the meat into a makeshift bowl. “Until you and your father, that is.”

Keith fiddles with his bandage. It’s impossible to suspect her of lying. Not when he’s been inside her head.

“It’s just,” he says, and doesn’t know why his voice is suddenly hoarse, “that kind of thing—years of that—has to leave a mark. How do you...how do you trust anyone new, after that? How do you come back from—from this kind of isolation?”

Trust, in spite of betrayal. In spite of being left.

(In spite of being the one who leaves. Again and again and again.)

He looks up, silently begging her to meet his gaze.

She doesn’t, at first. She crouches down at the firepit, arranging twigs.

Then she looks at him. Gives him half a smile (he resolves to make it full one day).

He thinks that’s all the answer he’ll get until she says, “Good question. Help me cook. Maybe the two of us can kick the habit before it’s too late.”

 

“—before it’s too late!” a muffled voice echoes from behind an office door.

“It’s not up to you,” another responds. “This is wartime. If we had the resources...”

The rest fades into indeterminate babble.

The three Paladins crouch in the hallway, uncomfortably devoid of cover for this stretch. They’ve left the main hospital corridors behind, steering toward the surprisingly modest office wing. The walls are still painfully white, but the narrower halls leave them little room to maneuver.

“Lance,” Keith says quietly, “What’s in there?”

“Civilians, I think,” he says. “No weapons signatures. Could be doctors. But there’s a lot of them standing around in that little room. One’s sitting on the desk to make space.”

“Is that weird? That’s weird, right?” Hunk asks.

Allura shushes him. “I think they’re arguing.”

“You can’t just make that decision for the rest of us!” someone shouts, and the room immediately breaks into chaotic debate.

Keith strains to make out distinct voices. He presses an ear to the door.

“Should I...go in there now?” Allura asks dubiously.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Hunk says. “We should move.”

“What? No,” Lance says. “This might be Allura’s best shot to fast-talk them. You’re totally clear. Nobody headed in your direction. Halls...super empty.”

“Can confirm on security footage,” Pidge says.

Allura nods.

Keith retreats down the hall from the doorway, pulling Hunk along with him until they’re nearly at the bend in the corridor. Allura straightens herself to her most imperious height, ruffles her hair as though she’s run a great distance—Keith thinks she may be using her shapeshifting powers to look more flushed—and expands her vocal sac to full-frog. She opens the door.

“Please!” she says, convincingly desperate. “There’s been an accident.” The door swings closed behind her.

“Something isn’t right,” Hunk says, squeezing Keith’s shoulder. “Keith—”

“She’ll be quick,” Keith says. “She has to be, so they don’t think too hard. They’re distracted mentally. Angry about something. Something about—”

The office door locks with a _click._

Hairs raise at the nape of Keith’s neck.

He ducks.

The next things he hears, simultaneously: Lance shouting, “Behind you!”, the angry buzz of an energy weapon from around the corner, and Hunk screaming out in pain.

Keith rolls forward, twisting around to face the threat, low to the ground like an animal prepared to pounce. His bayard springs to life in his hand. His charge is fast and deadly, sword aimed directly at his opponent’s torso, rending her armor on contact.

Impossibly, the hallway is full of soldiers. He sees them appearing as the fight descends into a fog of adrenaline and carefully-controlled chaos. Grey-clad enemies materialize from nothingness, like shadows rising from the white of the walls.

Lance swears. Then he gasps, and swears again. “Quiznaking _stealth!”_ he says. “Hold on, maybe I can get a shot through a—a window— _shit—”_

Keith parries a thrusting blade, spinning to deliver a flying kick to the side of someone’s head.

He slides his eyes to the left for a tick—just enough to see the empty hallway by the office door. If there are more stealthed enemies coming from that direction, he can’t see them. They could be waiting for Keith to take the apparent opening; run straight toward them.

Nowhere to run. Nothing to trust.

Massive pain wallops his shoulder like a concussive force, sending him flying backwards. Numbness jitters down his arm as he struggles to his feet.

Energy weapons, different from the ones they saw in the fight for Puig. These are special forces—commandos.

Hunk is slumped against the wall, unmoving. Blood trickles out from under his headband.

Keith’s throat closes up for a moment—like fighting Shiro’s clone, like knowing the Paladins are trapped on a merciless planet-bomb, like waiting for his dad in the hospital, like pushing off into deep space when the rest of the team needs him (Hunk grabbing hold of his ankle).

He lets out a sound of pure rage, shoving his fist into someone’s gut. Smashing his forehead into theirs.

“Keith! Hunk!” Pidge shouts, “I’m coming!”

(“Hunk! I’m coming!” as Pidge streaks toward Yellow trapped by a Galra cruiser, cannon charging—)

All moments could be the same moment. Things happen again, again, again.

_(“How do you come back from this?”)_

Keith sends a soldier flying into her comrades. He stands in front of Hunk, stance wide, bayard swinging with deadly precision. He sharpens himself into something deadly; shooting pains run through his gums and the quality of the light changes in his slitting pupils.

He roars. Lunges right to fight off an attacker. Hears an energy weapon charging to his left and thinks: messy. That’s going to strike his heart at point-blank range; punch through his armor like paper. Perhaps it will be worth it.

It’s all happened before—he remembers seeing it now. _Againagainagaina—_

(The energy emanating from the cruiser’s cannon has shifted to an ugly yellow-white. Red strikes it with the sword—)

Then the killing shot misses. Flies over his head.

Cold adrenaline rushes through him as his body falls—as someone trips him, as someone forces him to safely fall out of the line of the shot.

It takes him a moment to understand what has saved him: Hunk grabbing hold of his ankle.

Keith looks back at his face, stunned.

Then a loud boom shakes the hallway. The wall beside him explodes into dust, covering his hair, his armor, his weapon.

Allura’s bayard flashes through the corridor like a snake, slicing into her enemies.

She steps out through the wall, closely followed by what looks like a doctor holding the Ligelian equivalent of a sawed-off shotgun.

“Military pigs!” the doctor roars. “Cowards!”

He fires into the crowd of soldiers. Taken off-guard, they scramble.

Keith stumbles to his feet.

“Approaching your position,” Pidge is saying in his ear. “Keep them busy, and this is as good as won.”

Hunk has slipped into unconsciousness. His big hands, covered in dust, lay open at his sides. His lips are just parted; his cheek is streaked with blood.

Keith grips his bayard. He takes a deep, shaking breath to guard against his pounding heart and the ice flooding his veins. ( _“I’m scared all the time, I can help you through it—”)_

He dives back into the fray.

 

He sees himself fighting in a corridor. This alone is not unusual. He’s fought in a lot of nondescript corridors, both with Voltron and with the Blade.

His opponents appear from thin air, rising like shadows from the walls.

What’s unique: future-Keith is protecting someone. He stands with his feet planted firmly in front of a slumped body. The future-flash is chaotic—shaky with adrenaline and points of pain flaring down Keith’s shoulder. There’s no telling who he’s protecting, but every echo of meaning in this jittering vision tells him that it’s absolutely imperative that the body behind him survives. That a death here and now would ruin Keith, send reverberations crashing through all possible futures and destroying something essential to his timeline—to the universe’s survival.

There’s an odd quality to future-Keith’s vision that causes each enemy to stand out in stark, unnatural relief. Like he’s wearing specialized sighting equipment. Or like his eyes have evolved into something new.

He feels future-Keith’s heart like listening through water—like smelling a waft of warm, hearty dinner from half a mile away.

He lunges right to fight off an attacker. Hears an energy weapon charging to his left and thinks: messy. That’s going to strike his heart at point-blank range; punch through his armor like paper.

Perhaps it will be worth it.

He feels a love both ancient and new-born. Fragile and ferocious.

Then he wakes up.

“Keith!” Krolia says, and it takes him a moment to realize that he’s sweating too hard, fingers scrabbling at the grass, breaths coming in great, frantic gusts.

“Keith,” Krolia says again, softer, and lays a finger at the nape of his neck.

He gulps down the whale’s atmosphere like a man with a rip in his spacesuit, struggling to breathe, trying to remember how to survive.

He’s shaking all over.

“I can’t,” he says, and doesn’t know what he means.

Krolia doesn’t move. Just kneels next to him, a single finger pressing at his neck.

Keith gathers himself enough to let his body relax, and then he collapses into her.

They sit like that for awhile: Krolia with her legs crossed, Keith leaning on the front of her shoulder. Listening to tiny gusts of wind playing through the grass. Watching materia circle dark stars in the heavens.

Then she reaches up, tentatively, to muss his hair.

“I’m okay,” Keith tells her, swallowing.

“What did you see?” she asks, and from the wobbling edge in her voice he suspects she knows what’s coming.

“I’m okay,” Keith tells her again. “It’s just, I think I’m gonna die fighting alone.”

They are silent for a long time. But they are, at least, silent together.

“Help me cook,” she says finally, her breath stirring against his cheek. “We’ve almost got it right by now.”

She squeezes his hand.

 

Hunk wakes in the cryo-replenisher, more alert than anyone expected. He stumbles sleepily out of the fog, eyes barely open, and falls into Keith’s embrace.

Keith lowers him to the ground slowly, holding him in arms made strong from training and fighting and stirring pots of campfire stew on a whale outside time. Only then—with Hunk real and solid in his hold—does Keith allow himself to relax.

He sits, cross-legged, on the floor. Lets Hunk lean on the front of his shoulder.

“Welcome back, buddy,” Lance says, plopping down next to them. He pats Hunk on the shoulder. “Place hasn’t been the same without you.”

“How long was I out?” Hunk asks sleepily. He nestles a bit into Keith’s sweater, and Keith tries not to bury his head too far into Hunk’s hair. Tries to remember that they are both alive.

“About a day, maybe,” Lance says. “Closer to a quintant, I guess. It’s all good. Pidge and Shiro are helping deliver medical supplies on Puig, and Allura—”

“The doctors!” Hunk says, sitting up straight. “Oh god, did we get the doctors? Did Bos—”

Keith finds himself laughing; pulling Hunk back to himself with an odd giddiness. Loving the weight of Hunk’s chest against his.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Once the whole team got to our position we were able to fight back. The hospital staff wanted to help the downed pilots, it turns out—at least, most of them did. News of the battle is broadcasting on Ligel like crazy and...I mean, they’re civilians. Healers. They don’t like leaving hurt people alone.”

“Hospital’s head of surgery is, uh...kind of a firecracker,” Lance says. “Doesn’t ‘hold with politicians,’ as he helpfully informed us while brandishing the honest-to-Christ sawed-off shotgun he keeps under his desk in case of, like, an open civil war. Total badass.”

“Maybe kind of paranoid,” Keith says.

Lance laughs, loud and rich. “Really believable coming from you, Mr. Mystery Cool Guy.”

The teasing feels earnest and natural. Nostalgic, a vision from their early days floating through space, trying to configure themselves into a team just as they tried to configure their lions into something greater than themselves. Trying to become friends.

Keith smiles to himself, holding Hunk tighter, almost as tight as he wanted to in that future-flash (in a memory).

Lance looks at the two of them, and something in his grin goes soft.

He yawns hugely, stretching his arms above his head. “Well, now that Dr. Rex Danger has heroically nursed his best friend back to perfect health” - Hunk snorts at that - “I’m gonna get some beauty sleep.”

“You could use it,” Keith says.

Lance punches his shoulder. Pulls himself to his feet with a slightly mischievous expression. “You two have fun, okay?”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Hunk says, and for a second Keith fears that Hunk is being earnest. Then he registers the playful note in his voice—nearly coy—and the way he adjusts his position to give Lance what Keith can only assume is a self-satisfied look.

He feels a familiar heat rising to the back of his neck.

Reluctantly, he lets Hunk get to his feet, and follows suit.

Lance gives them a playful salute and starts out the door.

“Lance—wait,” Keith says, following him down the steps into the center of the infirmary.

“Hmm?”

“I just…” he stops. Forces his hands to lie flat against his sides, rather than balling into nervous fists. “You were right. It’s...it’s been forever since we’ve hung out. Can we all, maybe...do a movie night? Or something?” The words are coherent, but he’s unable to hide the slightly desperate note in his voice.

Lance blinks at him with what looks like his surprise, but covers it up immediately with a cocky grin. “Only if you let me pick the movie. Hunk would pick something dumb in black and white. Pidge would pick something full of coding jokes. Don’t even get me started on Shiro and Allura. And you? I can’t have you picking some...weird slasher film or something!”

“Slasher film?” Keith says, aghast. “Slasher—that’s different! Grindhouse is different!”

“Whatever, dude,” Lance says with a dramatic shrug, pivoting on his heel to walk out the door.

It isn’t until Keith notices Hunk giving him a warm, knowing look that he stops grinning to himself like an idiot.

He clears his throat, pushing his bangs back from his face. “Um....hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Hunk says with a quick, unfamiliar smile that shows an intriguing flash of teeth. He covers the four stairs slowly, each step deliberate. He meets Keith in the center of the room. Only stops when his chest is quite close to Keith’s own.

For a moment all Keith can do is stare. He takes in Hunk’s mussed hair; his dirty armor. Probably all he wants to do is get cleaned up and spend some time alone. It’s how Keith would react.

“I need to thank you,” he says in a rush, eyes darting between Hunk’s broad shoulders, his cheeks, his hands. “You completely saved my ass out there.”

“That’s weird,” Hunk says, looking genuinely perplexed. “‘Cuz I definitely remember it being the other way around.”

“You don’t—you don’t remember?”

“I mean, I think I tripped you? My bad, dude, I wasn’t sure how else to help when that guy had his gun trained on you. Hope it didn’t throw your rhythm off too bad.”

Keith thinks of the team floating in space together. Of himself, trying to become—again and again—the one who leaves. Of Hunk grabbing hold of his ankle.

“You have no idea,” he says, voice breaking on the words.

He throws his arms around Hunk’s shoulders and holds on as tightly as he’s always wanted to.

“Whoa, hey,” Hunk says. The words are gentle. His arms wrap around Keith’s back, pressing close enough that Keith feels sheltered, and powerful, and full of a jumble of emotions with hidden names.

_(Soft and powerful and full of life and love. His next gasp of air feels like a revelation.)_

“Hunk,” he says into his shoulder. “Can we eat the coconut bread? Or—you probably want to get changed, or take a nap. That’s fine too. I just—”

Hunk laughs, and Keith feels it down through his bones.

“‘Course,” Hunk says. “Absolutely.”

He puts his chin on Keith’s head and hums.

Keith takes a deep breath and tells Hunk something important.

 

He’s alone in the Black Lion with Shiro two weeks after leaving the quantum abyss. Kosmo, perhaps sensing that Keith’s temper was beginning to fray surrounded by every member of their party that felt like paying him a visit via wolf-transport, had whisked Krolia away. She’s now in Blue, getting to know both Allura and a visiting Pidge.

Keith sighs; mutes the intercom. The noise—the squabbling, the joking, the complaints—is unbearable after so long in silence.

Shiro props his arm against the back of Keith’s chair.

“Are you doing alright?” he asks quietly.

Keith wants to say yes. There are more important things for the team to focus on right now.

Instead he leans back against Shiro’s good forearm (he’s human, he’s whole, it could have been so much worse) and sighs.

“You’d know if I was lying,” he says.

Shiro chuckles. “I’ve had practice.”

Keith stares up at Black’s ceiling. His connection with her is like an anchor: grounding and secure, while weighing him down in a responsibility he still isn’t sure he can handle.

“It was...just really quiet in the abyss.” He trusts that Shiro understands what he’s trying to say.

Shiro hums sympathetically. “I bet. You know where it was also quiet?”

“Oh god,” Keith says. “Are you gonna make this into a _contest?”_ He cranes his neck even further backwards; gives Shiro a halfhearted glare. “That won’t make me feel better.”

He knows he sounds like a petulant kid. Old habits die hard.

Shiro laughs, and Keith doesn’t begrudge him for it.

“You’d win,” Keith finally concedes. He reaches up to press a hand against Shiro’s wrist. “You’d definitely win. I should be asking _you_ if _you’re_ okay.”

“You do,” Shiro says fondly. “Several times a day.”

“Right.”

Shiro hesitates for a moment, glancing out through the viewport.

“Keith…” he says. “You know I’m here if you need me. We all are.”

Unbidden, words rise to Keith’s tongue: _But I might not be._

He doesn’t say it. Shiro trusts him to become someone who doesn’t leave. They all do.

Instead he says, “Thanks. I’ll try to remember.”

They listen to the ambient sounds of Black’s computer systems running—nearly silent, if one doesn’t know what to listen for. Like the sound of Kosmo popping into a room.

“I’ve always had a good feeling about this team,” Shiro says. “That hasn’t changed. I think we’ll recover alright.”

“Counting on it,” Keith tells him.

“It might just take some time.”

 

“Taste this,” Keith says, holding out the ladle. “I think I used too much salt.”

Hunk leans down to take a sip. “Oh my god!” he says. “This is really good!”

“Aaaand there’s that surprised tone.”

“No, seriously, Keith, this is really good! And you know how high my standards are. You make a good stew.”

Keith inspects Hunk’s delighted expression; the way he clasps his hands together in rapturous delight. “Okay,” he says. “Say it.”

Hunk’s grin grows even larger. “So what I’m thinking is, you could actually use a little _more_ salt, and it’s maybe the cumin that we need to cut back on. Also, I know the Olkari spud is the closest thing we’ve found to a potato out here, but the flavor profile is a liiiiiitle bit more acidic, so we can compensate for that with—”

Keith finds himself laughing harder than he has in weeks. He puts the ladle back in the pot. “Have at it, Hunk,” he says fondly. “You’re the man.”

“But I mean it, it’s really good! Where did you learn the recipe?”

Keith shrugs, leading against a clear space on the counter. “Adapted it from something Mom and I would make in the abyss. There’s this...badger-looking thing that goes really well as the protein, and—wait, you guys never talked about spices?”

Hunk furrows his brow, head tilting to the side.

Keith scratches at his neck. “She literally kept...flash-dried herb packets from Earth. It’s crazy. In her pack she had, like, all these essential medical supplies, stuff for weapons’ upkeep, gadgets that could kill you fifteen ways and then send a distress signal on your behalf...and then she had these decades-old Earth spices she just couldn’t leave behind when she rejoined the Blade.”

He grins to himself, remembering long and silent nights around the fire. Learning new patterns of communication; thinking of one home while building a new one.

“She didn’t...use them much before we met. Said she was saving them for something special.”

He looks up at Hunk, and starts. Hunk is looking back at him with watery eyes.

“That’s...that’s so beautiful,” he says, wiping away a tear. “Man, your mom is just...I have to get to know her better. I think she’d like my family. That’s like—that’s a love language, you know? You don’t even need any words.”

A pleasant and powerful feeling of calm spreads outwards from Keith’s ribcage; sends a shiver down his spine and bathes his thoughts in yellow light.

“I knew you’d get it,” he says, and cups a hand around the back of Hunk’s neck.

Hunk’s cheeks quickly turn a dark, rosy color that makes Keith’s heart race.

Keith scoots back on the counter, pulling Hunk closer. He wraps his legs as far as he can around Hunk’s waist.

“Watch the stove. It’s hot,” Hunk tells him seriously. Then he leans down and kisses him, hard.

Keith savors the pressure of Hunk’s lips for just a moment—pushes back, entertains the idea of thrilling, coy resistance—before allowing him entry. The two of them are perhaps too eager, still learning each other’s movements but reluctant to go slowly: their teeth clack against each other, and Hunk smiles against Keith’s lips.

Hunk wraps his arms all the way around Keith’s body, pressing forward against the counter until Keith has to lean backwards to continue the kiss, resting his weight on Hunk’s arms. He grasps the front of Hunk’s shirt, first clutching the fabric to steady himself before smoothing his fingers out along the lines of Hunk’s pecs. Pressing firm.

With the other hand he fingers the hair at the nape of Hunk’s neck. He toys with the tails of Hunk’s handband, then dances his fingernails against his skin, eliciting a delightful shiver.

Keith feels smug about this until Hunk sucks on his bottom lip. Pulls it outwards. Keith’s breath hitches; he feels his nails dig into Hunk’s neck.

After a final tug, Hunk breaks off the kiss. Dazed, Keith leans forward to chase him, until Hunk begins running kisses down the side of Keith’s neck, beginning at the place where his jawbone meets his ear and peppering them—firm and just slightly open-mouthed, again and again and again—toward his collarbone.

Keith gasps and leans back further—further—until he bumps his head on the kitchen wall.

“Oh my god,” Hunk says, immediately pulling Keith upright against him. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”

Keith smiles dizzily. Pushes his forehead into Hunk’s broad chest and lets the heat flux and flare through his cheeks, down his torso. “It’s fine. I’m okay.”

“But like,” Hunk says, sounding worried, “we should do this somewhere more comfortable.” He hesitates for a moment before adding, “We can table the stew if we refrigerate the remaining ingredients; of course there is, technically, a limited window before—”

Keith gently pushes Hunk back a couple of steps so he can stand up from the counter. He stretches up onto the balls of his feet to press a kiss to the corner of Hunk’s lips.

Hunk sighs in contentment; encloses Keith’s hands in his own.

“We’ll finish the stew,” Keith says. “I’m starving.”

Hunk’s cheeks dimple when he smiles.

They spend the night in Keith’s quarters with Kosmo curled up at the foot of the bed. Keith feels the steady rise and fall of Hunk’s chest beneath his, breaths deep with peaceful dreaming.

He presses a kiss to a Hunk’s ear. Hunk frowns in his sleep, forehead wrinkling adorably. He mutters something and pulls Keith closer.

Keith relaxes into Hunk’s shoulder and thinks: _some things still change._

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at wufflesvetinari.tumblr.com!


End file.
